Disillusioned Medea ("The Enchantress")

The moody young woman seated before an altar and a statue of the goddess Diana is an enchantress, as her wand indicates. A similar figure, perhaps Pomona, leans on a garlanded altar in another canvas by Bor (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam), which is generally considered to be a pendant to the present picture. The pair would date about 1640. Bor worked in Rome during the 1620s and by 1628 had returned to his native Amersfoort, near Utrecht. His eccentric style is a somewhat provincial but impressive response to the Caravaggesque effects introduced into Utrecht by Hendrick ter Brugghen and Gerard van Ho... Mehr ...